Which did which? I think their stances on religion and belief preclude either from a pure positivist trajectory.

You already attributed this phrase to Hayek not Darwin or Wallace. I don't get the reason why this is mentioned here.

I think this is a problem with any sort of change. The old morality becomes detached and decays when change obsoletes some of its foundation. A solution which IMHO makes morality more resistant and adaptable to change, is to remove its dependency on "old men in the sky" and other extraneous beliefs that ultimately do not matter.

Believe something is right and act on that basis, because it is right (or at least creates a sound basis for a just and fair society), not because a sky god tells you to. Else when the sky god goes away, the morality does too - at least until a new morality is established.

That's a pretty abusive characterization of the latest report. The most important climate variable, the temperature forcing sensitivity of CO2 concentration in atmosphere was loosened to a factor of three difference between highest and lowest estimate. It's now back to where it was in the late 19th century with Arrhenius's estimates (which I gather is the basis for Jane Q. Public's claim that the science is "weaker than ever"). Extreme weather was put on the back burner. We're left with a greatly weakened case for urgency as a result. Those are huge changes.

FIFY. Note both the weakness of the actual claim made and that it doesn't actually translate into a call for action. Just because a narrow category of scientist, most which don't actually do research on global warming, happen to have an opinion that there is some degree of human-induced global warming doesn't mean that we need to act to reduce CO2 emissions.

And I question whether there actually is that high a level of agreement. From this story, we have the following comment on a 2007 survey:

74% is a fair bit short of your "over 90%" claim, but that includes scientists without a direct financial or status stake in global warming being true. Now there's been a few years since 2007, but I see no evidence, despite widespread government bribery, that the evidence has improved significantly. To the contrary, the IPCC had to weaken their case as Jane Q. Public noted.

The article was written about us. The sort of anti-scientific hypocrisy present in a considerable portion of your posts here, is a common manifestation of that. You are merely a pot calling a kettle black.

I suggest the Ashkenazim, a subgroup of Jews from Eastern Europe, as a counterexample. There seems to have been selection pressure for genes that promote intelligence during their stay in Europe (particularly, when the population was isolated socially and economically from around 800 AD to 1650 AD).

It would be less dangerous. Corporations and other businesses are more vulnerable than governments. And I'm not interested in achieving a society that matches my interests perfectly.

The Pinkertons always worked with law enforcement to provide legal cover for their actions. And they became that powerful due to numerous government-related contracts. And I have to roll my eyes at the claim that a "private NSA" could have as much data as the real one. Especially, since the "private NSA" wouldn't have the sorts of powers that allow the real NSA to collect so much data.

In other words, the IRS just took her money while she'd have a chance against a private institution doing the same.

This is poor advice at two levels. First, natural selection does work at the level of species too. Else there wouldn't be identifiable species or the possibility of species going extinct. Darwin wouldn't have gotten far with the theory of evolution, if it weren't for the huge variety of observable species.

Nor should one read Darwin just for the science, but rather to see how a master writer and scientist puts together a beautiful and profound scientific argument. So much of scientific writing today is crap. It's poorly written and stuffed with cliche, sometimes not even understood by the author much less anyone else who reads it.

What are you trying to say here? Darwin was Christian and Wallace was a spiritualist. So both had some sort of belief along these lines.

I don't buy that. When are the NSA's poor and unlawful decisions going to get appealed?

And your IRS versus private business example is laughable. Notice that the IRS took the money straight away while the private business would attempt to do by less sure means. And if you win a private case against a business, you can get your lawyer money back from the business.

What's the reason for this unprovoked and gratuitous assault on Darwin? Darwin didn't start as a famous noble either though admittedly started with a somewhat better economic position (and social status) than Wallace.

Perhaps you ought to read Darwin first before you cast judgment? "The Origin of Species" is remarkable as a coherent, broad, and detailed argument for evolution. While much has been said about how we've moved on since then with far better and more nuanced understanding of biology and evolutionary processes, it is still remarkable how well Darwin's works can stand up to scrutiny, even today. I think these works will long stand as examples of how to make thoughtful, convincing scientific arguments.

There's been a lot of money thrown at renewables so far and we produce more CO2 than ever.

What is your reason for treating foxes differently than people? What can change people? Some sky god?

Because it happens in a movie, it can't happen in real life?

The crowd shouldn't be that close to the fireworks in the first place. They have to assume that shells will do that anyway say due to a mortar tipping over.

Not at all. Such a claim is merely a claim about economics. And if it does actually create a "new" discipline, what of it? We're allowed to do that. But frankly, I think there's enough overlap on both the biology and economics side to avoid the need for doing so.

Which is an absurd claim. We can look at actual definitions of economics:

Obviously, the phrase "individuals, governments, firms, and nations" is very human-centric. And "unlimited wants" is kind of an exaggeration since there are limits to wants even at infinite levels of resources (eg, the cost of making the decision concerning disposition can outweigh the benefit of the additional infinite part of the resources).

But that doesn't change that economics is fundamentally about multiple parties with preferences making choices that allocate scarce resources.

I find it hard to take seriously arguments which depend even a little on redefining a term in a non-standard way. You continue with:

Science can't make assumptions because it's just an inanimate collection of ideas. Scientists can make assumptions. And we do see in the real world differences in behavior even at the microbe level when an organism has plentiful food rather than too little food. Just because the organisms might not have a concept of time value of calories or whatever, doesn't mean that they can't behave in ways which happen to exploit that concept.

No. Reality doesn't work that way. The power of patterns is that if some aspect of reality meets the preconditions of the pattern, then the pattern exists whether or not we are even aware of the pattern.

Until Google does something that gets it bound by another court ruling.